The terrorist attack Thursday in the Xinjiang region is China’s deadliest in memory, though it echoes other recent episodes. Drivers in two SUVs plowed through outdoor market stalls in the provincial capital of Urumqi while throwing explosives, killing 31 people. This is terrorism and needs to be condemned, though it also speaks to a deeper political alienation in Xinjiang that isn’t going to be solved by an antiterror crackdown alone.
Updated May 26, 2014 5:35 p.m. ET
The terrorist attack Thursday in the Xinjiang region is China’s deadliest in memory, though it echoes other recent episodes. Drivers in two SUVs plowed through outdoor market stalls in the provincial capital of Urumqi while throwing explosives, killing 31 people. This is terrorism and needs to be condemned, though it also speaks to a deeper political alienation in Xinjiang that isn’t going to be solved by an antiterror crackdown alone.
The Politburo in Beijing on Monday pledged a new antiterror offensive, and the provincial Communist Party secretary said Xinjiang will be the “major battleground” of a year-long national anti-terror campaign. What should scare Beijing is that acts of terrorism are increasing despite its previous crackdowns.
In October a car holding three Uighurs exploded near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, killing those inside and two bystanders. In March a knife-wielding gang of assailants believed to be Uighurs killed 29 people at a train station in southwest China. And in April two men with knives and explosives killed themselves and a bystander while injuring nearly 80 outside the train station in Urumqi.
Beijing generally blames Uighur violence on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist group that has shown little evidence of existing. (Xinjiang was known as East Turkestan before 1949.) China’s state-run Global Times last year cited an official’s anonymous and unverified assertion that some 100 Uighurs had received terrorist training in Syria.
Foreign training is possible, but the use of knives and improvised explosives is typical of local and less sophisticated sources. The evidence suggests that small groups of Uighurs are starting to form their own terror cells. The nightmare for Beijing is if these groups proliferate and begin to attack where and when they want. Unlike isolated Tibetans, these cells could strike throughout the country.
Chinese propaganda nonetheless continues to blame outside forces such as Rebiya Kadeer, exiled leader of the World Uyghur Congress. But Ms. Kadeer was one of the first to condemn Thursday’s attack. “Violence against civilians is unacceptable and my heartfelt condolences reach out to the victims’ families,” she said Friday. “In spite of the Chinese government’s policy of repressing all kinds of dissent in East Turkestan by brute force, the vast majority of Uyghur people still believe in achieving their freedom, democracy and human rights by peaceful means.”
A year ago some China watchers believed that President Xi Jinping wanted to soften Beijing’s approach toward the Turkic-speaking Uighurs, but reform hopes have gone unrealized. In December he declared that the “prime task” in Xinjiang is stability rather than development. Schools in the region still suppress teaching of the Uighur language, children are still barred from mosques, and fasting on Ramadan is restricted. Official campaigns against Uighur tradition are intensifying, with the sale of traditional women’s garments banned, and jobs and loans often denied to men with beards.
Moderate Uighur leaders such as Ms. Kadeer have been exiled, while scholar Ilham Tohti, language advocate Abduweli Ayup and others have been jailed. Radio Free Asia reports that last week’s market attack came two days after police opened fire at a protest over the detention of Uighur women and middle-school girls for wearing headscarves.
None of this justifies the resort to violence, as Ms. Kadeer notes, but China will not stop growing Uighur anger with more repression. Beijing needs to respect the Uighur culture and demands for self-government. The alternative could be its own Chechnya.
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